Males are chestnut and gray, while females are mostly brown. This sparrow uses dry acacia country and towns and forages in large flocks outside the breeding season.
Males have a chestnut forehead and hindneck, a gray back with black streaks, and chestnut wings. The throat is black and the underside pale. Females are mostly brown, with a pale eyebrow and white throat. Males of subspecies fulgens may be more yellow.
It inhabits semi-arid to arid country with acacias and also uses towns and villages. It eats seeds, cultivated cereals, household scraps, and insects, and forages in large flocks outside the breeding season.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.